Dr. Laurence H. Raney, MD Division Director, Associate Professor

We begin 2009-10 with pride in the goals we fulfilled last year and optimism for continued success.

We've grown to a faculty body of 26, a size that enables us to meet the ever -growing demands on academic emergency medicine. One of our continuing strategic goals has been superior patient care and our efforts are paying off. Our achievements in patient satisfaction and operational benchmarks have put us in the top quartile of the University Hospital Consortium's performance reports.

As of July 2009, we now have our full complement of 18 residents. Under the direction of our program director Dr. Christina L. Bourne, they continue to help us build this new program. And as a testament to our program's strength our own Lindy Carter was selected by the Emergency Medicine Residents Association as Program Coordinator of the Year 2009.

We continue to excel in teaching and academics and we're pleased that the MUSC medical students agree by giving us high marks for educating them. Last year, they awarded eight teaching awards to EM faculty and residents.

Recently , the Duke Endowment awarded us a $2.5 million grant to launch the Charleston Area eHealth Alliance project. This initiative, led  by EM Medical Director Dr. Christine Carr, will link eight Charleston EDs technologically to share patient information. This is a pilot project that is slated for implementation across South Carolina. For this project we won first place (out of 50 entries) in Modern Healthcare Magazine's Case Study Contest.

Dr. Keith Borg has received a K12 award from MUSC's NIH-funded CTSA. This is a career development award which provides research training, mentorship and support for his project on Traumatic Brain Injury. Dr. Borg will be looking at the isoprostanes as markers of oxidative stress in adult as well as in pediatric patients with acute TBI. His mentors on the project are Dr. Edward Jauch, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, and Dr. Perry Halushka, Dean of Graduate Studies at MUSC. This translational research project capitalizes on amazing research resources and support at MUSC from bench to bedside in the pursuit of improving care for patients with TBI.

We are a top-performing ED by many measures. As we look forward to graduating our first class of residents in June 2010, we will strive to carry forward this important momentum.

Laurence H. Raney, M.D.
Director, Division of Emergency Medicine